A special reading of the last poem in Robert Bly's "Silence in the Snowy Fields" entitled Snowfall in the Afternoon.    Read along with the beautiful song Vieille chanson du jeune temps (Hugo) which speaks to the famous haunting song of the girl in Victor Hugo's "Last Day of a Condemned Man".  Please find the previously untranslated song of a human tragedy - a careful mixing of the genius of Bly and Hugo.

The poems of Robert Bly are rooted deep in the earth. Snow and sunshine, barns and cornfields and cars on the empty nighttime roads, abandoned Minnesota lakes and the mood of America now--these are his materials. He sees and talks clearly: he uses no rhetoric nor mannered striving for effect, but instead the simple statement that in nine lines can embody a mood, reveal a profound truth, illuminate in an important way the inward and hidden life. This is a poet of the modern world, thoroughly aware of the complexities of the moment but equally mindful of the great stream of life--all life--of which mankind is only a part.